Girl commits suicide

TNN / Nov 18, 2006, 01:58 IST

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A 22-year-old HCU student, Ashima Dhawan, died hours after she consumed an unknown poisonous substance on Friday.

HYDERABAD: A 22-year-old Hyderabad Central University (HCU) student, Ashima Dhawan, died hours after she consumed an unknown poisonous substance on Friday.
She left no suicide note behind and her death came as a rude shock to her parents who had spoken to her just hours before taking the poison. Her father, Anil Dhawan, a Castrol employee from Delhi, said he had no idea why his daughter killed herself.As far as he knew there was nothing troubling his daughter.
"I cannot understand why she committed suicide. She never mentioned anything about being sad or depressed. She was planning to come to Delhi after completing her semester on November 29. Her ticket was also booked for November 30,"he told TOI as he waited for his daughter's body at the hospital. After the post-mortem, the family flew Ashima's body back to Delhi.
But the father probably did not know everything about Ashima, say students on the campus. On the campus she was known to be a married woman.

Ashima had told her faculty and classmates in the university that her husband was also a student, doing his MBA in Delhi.
But, when TOI asked her father about this, he said, "she was not married. You have wrong information."He had the same thing to say to the police and the university authorities as well.
A Delhi girl, Ashima came to the city after taking admission for M.Sc Biotechnology at HCU. She had also taken the entrance test at Jawaharlal Nehru University and HCU was her third choice.

She was a brilliant student, who kept to herself, her father said. After speaking to her parents on Thursday at 10 pm, she reportedly studied for half an hour before turning in for the night as her exams were close at hand.
Around midnight, her roommate, Asha Barua, woke up to find Ashima vomiting in the room. When she continued vomiting, Asha alerted other hostel inmates and took Ashima to the university health centre.
Soon, the health centre, realising Ashima's critical state referred her to a private hospital where she was rushed to at 1.30 am. At 9.20 am on Friday morning, she was declared dead.
Her parents got a call at 2.30 am and took the first flight out of Delhi but could make it to the city only by 11.30 am. By then Ashima was already dead.
The hospital report says, she died of cardiovascular collapse due to intake of an unknown substance and severe metabolic acidosis.
"We have ruled out ragging totally as there is no evidence pointing to it. But it is believed that she may be secretly married and we will pursue our investigation on those lines,"said Chandanagar Police inspector, M Madhusudhan Reddy.

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